1 VT. 2 The Ontology of Commodities and Services, or: Why You Can Rent a Car but Cannot Rent a Person): Barry Smith .

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VT

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The Ontology of Commodities and Services, or:

Why You Can Rent a Car but Cannot Rent a Person):

Barry Smith

http://ontologist.com

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Nouns and verbs

Substances and processes

Endurants and perdurents

In preparing an inventory of reality

we keep track of these two different categories of entities in two different ways

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Snapshot vs. Video

substance

t i m

e

process

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SNAP vs SPAN

substance

t i m

e

process

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SNAP and SPANSNAP entities

- have continuous existence in time

- preserve their identity through change

- exist in toto if they exist at all

SPAN entities

- have temporal parts

- unfold themselves phase by phase

- exist only in their phases/stages

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SNAP vs. SPAN

Substances vs. their lives

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You are a substance

Your life is a process

You are 3-dimensional

Your life is 4-dimensional

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Substances

Mesoscopic reality is

divided at its natural joints

into substances:

animals, bones, rocks, potatoes

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Processes

Processes merge into one another

Process kinds merge into one another

… few clean joints either between instances or between types

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Processes

t i m e

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In the world of flux

everything is flux

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Processes have temporal parts

The first 5 minutes of my headache is a temporal part of my headache

The first game of the match is a temporal part of the whole match

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Substances do not have temporal parts

The first 5-minute phase of my existence is not a temporal part of me

It is a temporal part of that complex process which is my life

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Need for different perspectives

Not one ontology, but a multiplicity of complementary ontologies

Cf. anatomy vs. physiology in medicine

Cf. particle vs. wave ontologies in quantum mechanics

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Two Orthogonal and Complementary Perspectives

SNAP and SPAN

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Realization (SNAP-SPAN)

the execution of a plan, algorithm

the expression of a function

the exercise of a role

the realization of a disposition

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SNAP entities and their SPAN realizations

plan

function

role

disposition

algorithm

SNAP

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SNAP entities and their SPAN realizations

execution

expression

exercise

realization

application

course

SPAN

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Material examples:

performance of a symphonyprojection of a filmexpression of an emotionutterance of a sentenceapplication of a therapycourse of a diseaseincrease of temperature

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SNAP and SPAN in the Ontology of Production and Consumption

stocks and flows

products and processes

commodities and services

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National Income Statistics

sub-categorized according to whether provided by Government, Private Enterprise, Charities, etc.

Commodities (Manufacturing)

Services

Other

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APPLICATION

The Ontology of National Income Statistics (with thanks to Wolfgang Grassl):

from the Producer’s Perspectivefrom the Government’s Perspectivefrom the Consumer’s Perspectivefrom a Neutral, Ontological Perspective

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What is a commodity?

A SNAP entity

An apple

A book

A car

An overhead projector

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What is a service?A SPAN entity -- a movement

a cutting (of hair)an installation a repairan act of programmingan act of singingan act of lecturing

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What are you paying for

when you buy a railway ticket?

A commodity?

A service?

Something else? (A license/permission)

ontology of records and representations

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Music

What is the CD, which you buy in a shop?

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Is it a commodity?

Or is it a service?

Producer’s perspective

Government’s perspective

Consumer’s perspective

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US Government

treat music CDs as belonging to the service industry of music

[music a Fine Art; music is after all much “finer” than mere manufacturing]

thus CD sales are reckoned on the service side of National Income Statistics

(product of producers’ lobbying)

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Confusion

“Services industries are areas of high economic growth in modern economies”

Service industries include manufacture of CDs, CD-Roms, shrink-wrapped software …

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Two kinds of services

Embodied =

tied directly to specific human actions

Disembodied/Splintered =

floating free from the human actions which initiated them

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Embodied Services

haircutting LPs, CDs

consulting books, newspapers

nursing paintings

prostitution advertising

teaching television, telephone <?>

transport software on the net <?>

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Disembodied/Splintered Services

haircutting LPs, CDs

consulting books, newspapers

nursing paintings

prostitution advertising

teaching television, telephone <?>

transport software on the net <?>

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Embodied and Splintered Services

Embodied Disembodied/Splintered

haircutting LPs, CDs

consulting books, newspapers

nursing paintings

prostitution advertising

teaching television, telephone <?>

transport software on the net <?>

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A Better Definition

Service = an economic good for which production and consumption spatiotemporally coincide (hairdressing)

Since all consumption is SPAN, all services (= all token deliveries of services) are SPAN entities, too

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Service =

an economic good for which production and consumption spatiotemporally coincide

… but

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... but surely ‘coincidence’ can be shifted in time

there is live television (services)

but there is taped television

But note: the tapes, videos, DVDs are then commodities (SNAP)

Services are in every case time-perishable

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‘Splintered’ (‘disembodied’) services (CDs, books …)

are wrongly classified

they are not services at all because, their production and consumption do not coincide

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Embodied and Splintered Services

Embodied Disembodied/Splintered

haircutting LPs, CDs

consulting books, newspapers

nursing paintings

prostitution advertising = advertisements

teaching television, telephone <?>

transport software on the net <?>

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Two Kinds of Commodities

consumable (bananas)

and non-consumable (roads, telephone lines) SNAP

The latter afford services SPAN

as an ocean affords swimming

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When you sign a contract with the telephone country

you are renting the whole telephone net

(whether this is made of wires or radio-transmitters)

what you rent is a SNAP entity

therefore: IT IS NOT A SERVICE

as contrasted with telephone sex

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Strict, independent services

Dependent Services(Meta-services)

Selling manufactured goods

Renting manufactured goods

haircutting advertising LPs, CDs car rental

consulting selling, transport

books, newspapers

tele-communications

nursing input service(typing)

painting road networkswired networks

prostitution advertising

teaching

live television and theatreperformances

television and theatre technical services

software on the net

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Television and telecommunications

are similar ontologically: each has two components: the network and the utilization of the network

= continuants plus occurrents

SNAP plus SPAN

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From the consumer’s perspective

Television IS A SERVICE:we watch television in order to enjoy the services of the actors Here the network and delivery mechanism are secondary.

Not so for telephone ‘service’: We want to use the actual physical mechanical network object

Telephone is NOT A SERVICE

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Telecommunications

is an industry analogous to car rentalWhen we rent a car we rent the whole

car (not a temporal part of the car, since cars are SNAP entities and do not have temporal parts)

When we sign a contract with a telephone company we rent the whole network …

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The Ontology of Renting

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Car rental is like home rental

it is the purchase of a SNAP entity for a certain time

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Phone sex,like other stuff which comes down the phone line for payment, is a service. But the telecommunication system itself is a commodity, which we rent Proof: You still pay for your telephone connection even when no one is using the line. You still pay for your rental car even when you are not driving it

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It is a necessary feature of renting

that the object you rent can in principle exist before and after the period of your rental contract

what you rent must be a SNAP entity

You can’t rent a service: this is ontologically incoherent

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The category of services

– where production and consumption coincide both spatially and temporally

– is characterized by the fact that rental is impossible.

Services can only be purchased outright.

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Dependent services(meta-services)

What of:

Transport and shipping services (taxi services)?

Insurance services ?

Protection services?

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What of sales and marketing?

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An adequate ontology of marketing

must include three categories:

Things (commodities) Processes (production, consumption, sale):

of servicesof commodities

Settings (environments, niches, contexts):for production, consumption and sale

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Settings

the ensemble of environmental features within which a purchase is made (environmental features which are relevant to the purchase).

WHEN BUYING A CAR

WHEN BUYING A HAIRCUT

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Settings

When you buy a service you also buy a delivery setting.

And the delivery setting has the same temporal extent as the service itself. (Hairdressers)

The delivery setting for commodities is transient. They bring you the car and leave.

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The value of a commodity

is dependent upon the setting in which it exists at the moment of purchase(luxurious BMW car showroom)

The value of a service is dependent upon the setting in which it exists at the moment of delivery(luxurious hairdressing salon)

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More on the ontology of services

The service is the action, not the result

It is the haircutting, not the resulting pattern in the hair on your head

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A CD is a commodity

because one can either buy it or rent it.

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Definition of renting

x rents y to z : x owns y and x allows z to use y for a limited time in exchange for recompense proportionate to the length of time involved.

(There is an assumption that y will be available for multiple time periods.)

(Sub-letting as an iteration thereof)

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Theorem: There is nothing which can only be rented

Proof: From the definition of renting

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You cannot rent people

What is involved in employing people? Do you buy their labour or do you rent their labour.

Marx: the commonsensical view according to which we can rent or hire bodyguards is mistaken. We do not rent bodyguards; we buy the services of bodyguards for given time periods.

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The Story with

Bodyguards

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Counter-argument

Surely you can rent a bodyguard, because the bodyguard exists for a longer period of time than the time in which you rent him.

No: you buy the services (the actions) of the bodyguard

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If you could rent the bodyguard

this would be tantamount to slavery (indentured servitude) for the time of the rental period

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An Ontology of Prostitution and Slavery

A1 x is a commodity iff x is necessarily of such a sort that it can either be bought or rented.

A2 x is a service x is necessarily of such a sort that it can only be bought.

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An Ontology of Prostitution and Slavery

A4 Anything which can be rented can also be bought

A5 In legal systems like ours people cannot be bought

People cannot be rented.

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